Electric cars are useless in a cold climate

BONJOUR, i.e. the company Téo Taxi, a new kind of taxi service in Montreal, Quebec, with the common French term for “Hello” (“Bonjour”), literally meaning “GOOD DAY” on its cars has shut down operation.  Just when demand was rising due the cold temperatures in the city.

When launched in 2015, it was widely viewed as a novel cost-saving alternative to common taxi service operations. The Quebec government and major provincial institutions all jumped on board. The company acquired a fleet of vehicles and paid its (450+) employees fair wages.

Demand for the cab service was good, especially in this cold period of the year. Of course, competition from the other service providers of that kind kept profit margins low. Therefore, it wasn’t exactly a highly profitable enterprise at this time but, as I think, the real problem was a serious and insurmountable issue.

So, what’s the real problem and what caused the company’s failure?

Its main proponent, entrepreneur Alexandre Taillefer had no choice but to shut down the enterprise. Despite the estimated $30 million of tax dollars plus privately funded capital infusions, estimated at $50+ million (including Taillefer’s personal fortune, estimated at $4 million), it couldn’t make it. The competition from other short-haul service companies was just too severe.

At least, that’s what the MSM (main stream media) claim. I have a different view: The problem was more technical than financial in nature, namely the wrong technology used.

BONJOUR’s fleet of a few hundred cars was exclusively “electric cars.” That (politically correct, hence wrong) “electric idea” was the main cause of its demise.

For brevity, I’ll put it into a bullet form:

* Electric vehicles use energy stored in batteries.
* Batteries are chemical systems.
* By the Laws of Nature, chemical processes are temperature dependent.
* Every 10 degrees Celsius (C) in temperature change typical process speeds by a factor of 3.
* Hence, between PLUS 25 C (in summer) and MINUS 25 C (in winter), reaction speed changes by a factor of roughly 3^5 = 250 or so.
* Both speed of charging and discharging of batteries declines with falling at below freezing temperatures.
* The charge capacity of Lithium-Ion batteries also declines with lower temperatures.
* More frequent recharging needs reduced operating distances and increased overall charging time.
* In short, that’s why you’ll be finding few electric cars on the road in winter.

SOURCE 





‘Cooling Is Warming’: Climate Hoaxers Spin US Freeze

America enjoys a winter filled with tons of snow and frigid cold weather and out pops the Climate Hoaxsters to assure us this kind of weather only further proves our planet is getting, um… warmer.

This current Climate Hoaxster freak-out is largely in reaction to President Trump’s tweet earlier this week mocking them.

“In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded,” he tweeted. “What the hell is going on with Global Waming? [Sic] Please come back fast, we need you!”

Naturally, this launched a million reactionary headlines from our oh-so objective, unbiased, not-at-all left-wing media.

“Look at This Embarrassing F*cking Moron,” screamed Esquire.

“Debunking the utter idiocy of Donald Trump’s global warming tweet,” pouted CNN.

“Here’s Why the Crazy Cold Temperatures Prove Global Warming is Real,” Forbes says reassuringly.

“What Trump keeps getting wrong about Global Warming,” the Washington Post helpfully reports.

But here is my personal favorite headline from, where else?, NBC News…. “Yes, it can be this cold outside in a time of global warming.”

There are three Party slogans in George Orwell’s 1984, his masterpiece about an all-controlling centralized government that runs on lies, terror, and propaganda. See if you can pick out which Party slogan I invented among the four:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Frigid Weather Means Our Planet is Getting Warmer

The Climate Hoaxsters say that this run of cold weather does not mean the planet will not warm over the course of years, which would sound reasonable if these were not the same Climate Hoaxters who told us Global Warming meant the “end of snow,” or that this winter would be “warmer-than-average,” or that a run of warm weather last winter proved the planet is warming.

That last example is interesting, no?

You see, last year our Climate Hucksters told us a run of warm weather proved the planet is warming, which means we all have to give up our freedoms to a centralized government in order to save the planet.

BUT… a run of frigid weather this year also proves the planet is warming and we all have to give up our freedoms to a centralized government in order to save the planet.

So no matter what happens, no matter how cold or warm or temperate it is, everything proves Global Warming is fer real.

Hey, remember when the Climate Grifters told us Global Warming would make hurricanes worse?

Remember how, when that scientific prediction was humiliated in the face of record low hurricane activity, these same Climate Grifters told us this lack of hurricane activity proved Global Warming was really fer real?

Remember in 2005 when the establishment media told us that by 2015 Global Warming would drive gas up to $9 a gallon (it’s $2.08 here today), milk up to $12 a gallon ($2.99), and New York City would be underwater?

Remember how during that crucial time between 2005 and 2015, that decade before the imminent flooding of Manhattan, the establishment media did not remove any of its personnel from a New York City that was about to be drowned?

In fact, while CNN was telling us the seas were certain to rise, CNN shifted much of its base of operations from the inland safety of Atlanta to Manhattan; while CNN’s then-parent company, Time Warner, spent billions relocating its headquarters just two blocks from the water’s edge in New York.

And, soon enough, I’ll be asking if you remember how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a sitting member of Congress — went on TV and said the world would end in 12 years because of Global Warming.

You see, no matter what happens, no matter what the weather looks like, no matter how false their predictions turn out to be, no matter often they act as though they don’t believe in Global Warming, the Climate Swindlers still scream See! See! Toldjaso! — and almost always do it from a wildly expensive base of operations on the same coast they claim will soon be underwater.

Any student of history can look back and discover that all of history’s mass-murdering socialists — from Hitler to Stalin to Mao — have manufactured audacious lies and scapegoats as a means to consolidate power into a malevolent Central Authority.

Freedom is Slavery.

War is Peace.

Ignorance is Strength.

Cooling is Warming.

SOURCE 





Why ‘Green’ Energy Is Futile, In One Lesson

Here in Minnesota, we are enduring a brutal stretch of weather. The temperature hasn’t gotten above zero in the last three days, with lows approaching -30. And that is in the Twin Cities, in the southern part of the state.

Yesterday, central Minnesota experienced a natural gas “brownout,” as Xcel Energy advised customers to turn thermostats down to 60 degrees and avoid using hot water. Xcel put up some customers in hotels.

Why? Because the wind wasn’t blowing.

Utilities pair natural gas plants with wind farms, in order to burn gas, which can be ramped up and down more quickly than coal, when the wind isn’t blowing.

Which raises the question: since natural gas is reliable, why do we need the wind farms? The answer is, we don’t. When the wind isn’t blowing–as it wasn’t yesterday–natural gas supplies the electricity.

It also heats homes, and with bitterly cold temperatures and no wind, there wasn’t enough natural gas to go around. The resulting “brownout” has been a political shock in Minnesota.

Isaac Orr, a leading energy expert who is my colleague at Center of the American Experiment, explains this phenomenon in detail:

[W]ind is producing only four percent of electricity in the MISO region, of which Minnesota is a part.

While that’s not good, what’s worse is wind is only utilizing 24 percent of its installed capacity, and who knows how this will fluctuate throughout the course of the day.

Coal, on the other hand, is churning out 45 percent of our power, nuclear is providing 13 percent, and natural gas is providing 26 percent of our electricity.

This is exactly why the renewable energy lobby’s dream of shutting down coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants and “replacing” them with wind and solar is a fairy tale. It simply cannot happen, because we never know if and when the wind will blow or the sun will shine when we need it most.

“But the wind is always blowing somewhere” ~ a renewable energy lobbyist

Renewable energy apologists often argue that although the wind may not be blowing in your neighborhood, it’s blowing, somewhere. All we have to do, they argue, is build wind turbines and transmission lines all over the country so we can have renewable energy everywhere. It turns out this old chestnut is also completely wrong.

For example, the wind isn’t blowing in North Dakota or South Dakota, where more than 1,800 MW (a massive amount) of wind projects are operating or planned, at massive cost, by Minnesota electric companies.

In fact, the wind isn’t blowing anywhere.

Just look at California, the state that is consistently the most self-congratulating about how “green” they are. Wind is operating a 3 percent of installed capacity, solar is operating at 12 percent, natural gas is running wide open, and California is importing a whopping 27 percent of its electricity from Nevada and Arizona.

***

Days like today perfectly illustrate why intermittent, unreliable sources of energy like wind and solar would have no place in our energy system if they were not mandated by politicians, showered with federal subsidies, and lining the pockets of regulated utilities that are guaranteed to profit off wind and solar farms whether they are generating electricity, or not.

Isaac’s real-world message is starting to break through, at least here in Minnesota. Tomorrow morning the Star Tribune is running Isaac’s op-ed headlined “Bitter cold shows reliable energy sources are critical.”

Lawmakers considering doubling Minnesota’s renewable energy mandate to 50 percent by 2030 should use this week’s weather as a moment to reconsider their plans to lean so heavily on wind and solar.

***

[C]oal-fired power plants provided 45 percent of MISO’s power and nuclear provided 13 percent — most of this from Minnesota’s Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear plants (which we should keep open, by the way).

Natural gas provided 26 percent of our electricity use at that time, and the remainder was imported from Canada and other U.S. states.

Natural gas also heated the homes of approximately 66 percent of Minnesotans this week, by far the most for any home heating fuel, but there wasn’t enough gas to combat the frigid temperatures.

Because of the extreme cold, Xcel Energy urged its natural gas customers in Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to reduce the settings on their thermostats, first down to 60 degrees, then to 63, through Thursday morning to conserve enough natural gas to prevent a widespread shortage as temperatures remained 14 below zero.

Some Xcel customers in the Princeton area lost gas service, and Xcel reserved rooms for them in nearby hotels.

This week’s urgent notice from Xcel to conserve natural gas shows there is real danger in putting all of our eggs into the renewables-plus-natural gas basket.

At a minimum, pursuing a grid powered entirely by solar, wind and natural gas would require more natural gas pipeline capacity, which is likely to be opposed by the factions that are currently challenging the replacement of the Line 3 pipeline.

***

If Minnesota lawmakers are sincere in their belief that we must reduce carbon dioxide emissions as soon as possible, they must lift Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear power plants, which has been in place since 1994.

Not only would nuclear power plants be essentially guaranteed to run in minus-24-degree weather, but a forthcoming study by American Experiment has found that new nuclear power plants could not only achieve a lower emissions rate by 2030, but also save Minnesota $30.2 billion through 2050.

Stay tuned. We will release that report in two weeks. I think it will be a bombshell, not only in Minnesota but in other states that are fecklessly mandating ever-higher utilization of intermittent, unreliable, inefficient “green” energy.

SOURCE 





A New Campaign Would Create The Highest Gas Tax In The Country

Former Michigan lawmakers are pushing the state’s governor to implement what would be the most expensive gas tax in the U.S.

The Michigan Consensus Policy Project, led by a bi-partisan coalition of ex-lawmakers, is calling for the state to enact what would ultimately be a 47-cents-per-gallon tax to fund road and bridge repairs.

The proposal would raise Michigan’s gas tax by five cents annually for nine years, including another two-cent tax in the first year.

The proposal would be in addition to Michigan’s current gas tax, which is set at 26.3 cents per gallon. If implemented, the total tax would top at 73.3 cents in nine years’ time — making it the highest rate in the country.

Bob Emerson — a former Democratic state Senate minority leader and one of the backers of the campaign — said the gas tax is the best approach to funding Michigan roads because it “closely correlates to the amount of driving people do,” according to The Detroit News.

Average families in Michigan would see a considerable cut in the take-home pay if the tax is implemented, with middle-income, two-vehicle households estimated to pay an extra $400-plus a year under the plan.

“There’s no question there’s a need and no question about the importance of this,” said Ken Sikkema, a former GOP state Senate Majority Leader, explaining the need to fix Michigan’s roads and bridges. “It’s our hope that this proposal jump starts that important conversation.”

The goal of The Michigan Consensus Project is to push Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state’s Republican-led legislature to enact the 47-cent gas tax increase, which is estimated to generate upwards of $2.7 billion a year in extra revenue for the state’s transportation system.

The campaign comes as Whitmer is expected to unveil her first budget presentation in March. The New Democratic governor, while she hasn’t yet voiced support for the proposal, has expressed strong interest to “fix the damn roads” in Michigan.

Beyond the unlikeliness of such an exorbitant tax making it through the GOP-controlled legislature in Michigan, energy taxes have proven to be unpopular at a national and international level.

Voters in Washington State, for example, soundly rejected a carbon tax proposal in November for the second time. It was the second time voters in the deep blue state voted against implementing a tax on carbon emissions.

Across the Atlantic, French protesters have rioted over President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to raise gas and diesel taxes. The backlash ultimately forced Macros to withdraw the proposal altogether.

SOURCE 





We must hope Dr. Soon is right …

And the global warming apocalypse is not nigh. Real-world evidence certainly supports him.

Jeffrey Foss, PhD

Everyone has heard the bad news. Imminent Climate Apocalypse (aka “global warming” and “climate change”) threatens humanity and planet with devastation, unless we abandon the use of fossil fuels.

Far fewer people have heard the good news. The sun has just entered its Grand Minimum phase, and the Earth will gradually cool over the next few decades.

Why should we all hope Earth will cool? Because nobody with any trace of human decency would hope the Earth will actually suffer catastrophic warming.

Many of us believe in the threat of global warming, but live in the hope that we can switch to “renewable energy” before it is too late. But this is a false hope. Despite our best efforts over several decades, renewables such as wind and solar energy still meet only 2% of global energy needs, while hydro adds only 7% or so.

So avoiding the alleged Climate Apocalypse by relying on renewable energy would require surviving on less than 10% of our current energy requirements. But that is impossible. It would also be really catastrophic: billions could die.

Our global economy runs on energy, and over 80% of it is still fossil fuels, with nuclear and other non-renewables providing another 10%. If we switch to renewables tomorrow, 90% of our energy will be lost, and the global economy will sink like the Titanic. Keeping nuclear power would merely add a second lifeboat as the great ship sinks. Even if the energy loss were spread out over decades, the final result would still be the same.

Humankind could not produce enough food, clothing and shelter. Jobs would vanish. Massive starvation, disease and death would result. Hard physical labor would once again become the norm. Even though life could be maintained for some portion of humanity, liberty and happiness would be lost.

Let’s stop pretending. The prescribed cure for Climate/Global Warming Apocalypse is far worse than the purported disease. If we don’t use coal, oil and natural gas for energy, many of the 7 billion of us now alive must die. Those who survive will be impoverished and enslaved, toiling and scavenging for food by day, and fearing the darkness by night – except for the privileged few who still have money, energy and power.

The sudden and dramatic growth of human life, liberty, and happiness since the industrial revolution was achieved by replacing muscle power with coal and oil power. Before that, Hillsdale College professor of history Burt Folsom points out, only the wealthy could afford whale oil and candles. Everyone else had to go to bed early, and often hungry, when the sun went down, sleeping to recover enough energy to work – only to repeat the daily cycle yet again. Freedom of thought and travel had little real worth when we were too tired to think or walk.

The petroleum age saved whales from the brink of extinction – and brought cheap kerosene to the masses, so that they could read at night, bringing light into their lives and their brains.

The premature switch to renewable energy recommended by the false prophets of Climate Apocalypse is really just one step in an industrial counter-revolution devoutly desired by those discontented with modern life in free market democracies – and ready to erase our hard-won prosperity and freedom. 

The Climate Apocalypse global warming bad news is rewarded by big money from the government and servile amplification from traditional big news media – while the good news of global cooling is silenced and unheard, stifled by both traditional media and most of today’s social media platforms.

We should all be suspicious of the motives of those who push this bad news, and welcome those who push back. Dr. Willie Soon is one scientist, although by no means the only one, who has the courage to stand up to big money, big government, big (pseudo) science, big media and big environmentalism to spread the good news. It’s high time we all heard it.

The good news from Dr. Soon and his fellow solar scientists is that the increase in global temperatures since 1800 was caused by two centuries of increasing solar output – not by human use of coal and oil.

But then solar output began to fall around 2000, in a repetition of a well-known 200-year cycle of solar activity, and global warming stopped. That’s more good news that too few people know. The purveyors of Climate Apocalypse have no explanation for this two-decade failure of their prophecy, which fortunately for all of humanity shows the superiority of solar science over apocalyptic warming foretold by computer models, hysteria and headlines – but not by real-world evidence.

Finally, solar science says we should expect steady but manageable global cooling until about mid-century, when solar activity will recover and temperatures begin to warm once again. Once again, this will be due to solar activity, and not to fossil fuels or carbon dioxide emissions.

In the best news of all, that means humanity’s successful pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, and better living standards and healthcare needn’t be stopped by Climate Apocalypse – or its prescribed cure. The only thing we have to fear is the fear of Climate Apocalypse itself.

Equally important, a warmer or cooler planet with more atmospheric CO2 and plentiful, reliable, affordable fossil fuel and nuclear energy would be infinitely preferable to a cooler planet with less CO2 and only expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent wind, solar and biofuel energy.

At the very least, humankind has an historic opportunity to witness a crucial test between two scientific hypotheses of enormous consequence. The next decade or two will reveal whether Earth warms or cools.

Surely all right-minded people must hope that it cools – and that the fear-mongering of imminent global warming apocalypse cools as well.

I might add that no one should wish the current severe Chicago-style polar vortex cold on anyone. I extend my sympathies and prayers to all who are now suffering from the cold. But be of good cheer in the knowledge that this cold-snap at least puts the lie to vastly worse climate scare global warming stories.

I also wouldn’t wish on anyone the “Green New Deal” energy reality of February 1, 2019 – when wind power provided 1.5% of the energy that kept lights on and homes warm in America’s Mid-Atlantic region, solar provided zero, and derided and despised coal, natural gas and nuclear power provided a whopping 93% or that energy! Imagine the cold, misery and death toll under 100% pseudo-renewable energy.

Via email

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